The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) has recently published the Second Public Working Draft of the Note Accessibility of Remote Meetings.
The impact of COVID-19 has substantially increased the use of remote meeting platforms. With the rapid shift to remote meeting platforms, there has been little formalized guidance on how to ensure that remote meetings are accessible.
The draft is sectioned for different groups of audiences. It covers the need for remote meeting platforms to follow the accessibility standards in their development and ensure that the content used is accessible to all participants.
With the Research Questions Task Force (RQTF) of the Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group, the draft aims to find the best way to support different audiences while ensuring the guidance is linked back to the relevant W3C standards, where applicable.
Furthermore, the Note covers the W3C guidance relevant to platform development and selection that were covered in the past Notes:
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
- User Agent Accessibility Guidelines
- Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines
- Real-Time Communication Accessibility User Requirements ( RAUR)
- XR Accessibility User Requirements (XAUR)
This second draft incorporates the feedback provided from the first draft in November 2021, adding additional guidance on how best to run an accessible remote meeting and additional guidance for people with cognitive disabilities.
Dr Scott Hollier, CEO of CFA Australia, is the lead editor/author for the document. Dr Hollier stated, “it’s great to see this work continue into a second public draft, and I’d like to acknowledge the great work of my RQTF colleagues who have worked so hard on this to ensure that remote meetings are accessible at every level.”
To read the second public working draft of the document, visit the W3C page- link will open in a new window.